


Second Skins

by Marquise



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 09:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17281301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: She had taken it and hidden it and forgotten about it until just now, when she went to change the crisp linen of their bed and nearly stabbed herself.





	Second Skins

She hadn’t even realized she was holding it until his words cut through her; with a start she noticed him in the doorway, his face pained, that worried look that only he could give her written in every line of his features.

(And they were more lined these day, whether from age or pressure she did not know. What she  _did_ know was that she knew the contours of every inch of his face as intimately as her own hand. When she learned this Elizabeth could not say -- the information had simply crept up on her one day, until like so many other things it was like a second skin). 

The knife was a small one, taken from their modest kitchen. She had squirreled it away when she had first laid eyes on the set, purely on instinct. A knife at her side, under her mattress, and she was  _safe_. She hadn’t thought of the shame of being worried in her own country, in her old skin and with her old name to protect her, she had merely taken it and hidden it as she had done so many other weapons over the years. Her stash, her contingency plan, her strength. 

She had taken it and hidden it and forgotten about it until just now, when she went to change the crisp linen of their bed and nearly stabbed herself. 

Elizabeth glanced down at the knife then once more up at Philip, standing in the hallway, framed in sunlight. The windows were open to air the place out, the Moscow spring settling in all around them. It was their first spring since their return and everything still had this strange alien sheen about it. They kept house, worked, went about their lives as best they could as if something had not been ripped from them, as if there were not shared decades that had been reduced to shadows, as if they did not both wake shaking in the middle of the night and hold each other, eyes wide and mouths silent. 

They had tried their best to create some life from the fragments that had been left to them, clinging to each other in instinct, sobbing and screaming alone, relishing their isolation. 

She glanced once more at the blade. It felt strange in her hand, in this room. “I don’t know.” She spoke the truth; she saw no need to lie to him now, even if she could. “I kept it...” Unclear with what to do next she placed it gently aside, on the nightstand, then stared at it as she would a strange artifact from an ancient time. 

Philip came to her then, his step soft, but when he reached her side there was no hesitation in him. He wound an arm about her shoulders and pulled her close until she could feel his heart against her body, his breathing even and familiar. His fingers dug into her shoulder and she loved it. 

“We don’t need it,” he said calmly and she braced herself against the truth of it, against the surge of adrenaline that rushed through her body. Her hand reached out to touch it, briefly, an echo, then she squeezed her eyes shut and buried herself against him, momentarily weak. 


End file.
